Chamber and committees

That is a good point, although we should still say that the Covid vaccination programme has been really successful compared with others. You are right that we can see where the uptake level is but, generally speaking, if we compare uptake with that for other vaccination programmes, we can say that we have done incredibly well. I thank the army of vaccinators that we have up and down the country for what they have done in that regard.

We need to do everything that you mentioned. It is not just about vaccination, although that is the game changer. Vaccination must be front and centre of our response to Covid and to not just reducing the number of people who contract it but lessening its effects as best we can.

There is also continued work to do on ventilation in educational and work settings. The messaging is important, too. I referred to our Covid sense campaign, which reminds people about the measures that they can take.

We need to do all those things. There is no single answer.

We are still involved in work around surveillance—we continue to be vigilant, should there be any other mutations or variants of Covid. We continue to work on a four-nations basis in that regard, and I know that the UK will continue to work internationally with global partners on that.

There is not one answer to the question; there are multiple things that we have to do. We will keep up the regular drumbeat of campaigning, as well, of course, as the next programme of vaccination, on which we continue to take the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

We are getting the balance on that. We will continue to work on a four-nations basis with the UK Government on the various surveillance measures that we have. Waste water sampling is effective. It gives us real-time data in a way that other approaches do not necessarily do, so we will continue to ensure that we have that.

It is also fair to say that we are getting to the transition phase. We had the height of the pandemic and we are now going from pandemic to endemic. As we do that, we will end up treating Covid in the way that we treat other viral infections. Surveillance will be an important part of that transitional phase, as it is for other viral infections.

That is a very fair question. Some areas have that service. In the Highland service, which I have talked about, there have been 100 referrals and, in Lanarkshire, well over 500 referrals have been made. We lack a single point of access and the connect between the primary care and secondary care services. That is exactly what the funding is intended to address.

I have every faith that more and more health boards will develop those services much more consistently. Some are already doing that. Some are using the funding and giving us timescales for when the pathways will be more fully developed. However, Murdo Fraser has hit the nail on the head. That is the number 1 issue that comes up from long Covid sufferers time and again. They say that it all sounds good, but they ask whether the approach is consistently working across the country. The answer to that is not yet. That is what we are working on.

You are the second person to sack me in a few weeks.

That could be the case, but in the absence of such clinics I do not think that we should take our foot off the pedal at all on data gathering. I agree with the first point in your question, which is that having such data will be vital for improving the services that we provide. For me, the challenge in having long Covid clinics from what I have read and seen from the various models across the UK—there is not just one model—is that they tend to end up being a bit of a middle man. [Interruption.] I hear a mobile phone ringing. It is like the Oscars: when you have talked for too long the music comes on and they tell you to get off. [Laughter.]

Education is an area where we want to get better. I have met a number of young people who were suffering from long Covid—in fact, we had such a meeting a number of months ago just outside the Parliament. Some families told me that their school was excellent but others told me that that was not so much the case.

That is why it is important that I am having—as you can imagine—conversations with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. We are bringing in education officials, as well as fair work officials, to go back to Jackie Baillie’s question about employment. We are taking a cross-Government approach to that work, but it is fair to say that it is work in progress.

I agree. I wonder whether that is the same person from Aberdeenshire whom I met—I will not say their name. I heard about a very similar experience from a young person in Aberdeenshire who felt that their GP was dismissive. I have heard that experience from people not just in Aberdeenshire but in many other parts of the country.

That is why not only the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline but the implementation support note, on which we can give the committee further detail in writing through the convener, if it wants that, give a level of detail on the referral pathways that are available, and why we have put so much work, through the strategic network, into the education tools that are available for GPs.

I highlight the written evidence that the Royal College of General Practitioners gave to the committee, in which it stated that it believes that primary care and GPs are the first port of call and are “best placed” to give a holistic assessment before onward referral. I agree with it.

I would be more than happy to provide more detail on that in writing, but that is why so much work has gone into assisting our GP colleagues, who are facing a number of challenges from the pandemic around where those referral pathways are.

We have the implementation support note and an education strategy to raise awareness of long Covid. NHS Education for Scotland also has its learning platform, and I suspect that members will know that it contains a video and webinar content on long Covid. There is a lot in that space, and we are working closely with our primary care and GP colleagues to make sure that they know about the pathways that are available.

No. The money was distributed before the letter was sent to you.

That is not quite what I said.

We would have to do a further assessment of long Covid services to answer that, but I accept entirely the premise that you cannot reprofile money from one area to another without that having an impact, particularly given that I had to reprofile £400 million of funding within the health and social care budget. That clearly had an impact, and it would be foolish, and I would be insulting your intelligence and the intelligence of other people listening and watching, if I said that that was not the case. I know that Jackie Baillie understands that those decisions were made because our budget was so badly impacted by peak inflation. At that point, that made the health and social care budget worth about £1.2 billion less.

We also wanted to ensure that we gave a fair pay deal to our NHS workers. I know that Jackie Baillie fully supports that. To do that, we had to reprofile. That is why I was very keen to ensure that, when we set the budget for 2023-24, we put that money back into primary care. However, it is absolutely the case that, when we reprofile that amount of money, although we try to do it in a way that has a minimal impact, it will, of course, have an impact.